Let us begin with the Bard of Avon. In his less renowned comedy, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare observes, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them.” (Consider poor Rahul Gandhi, desperately trying to escape the clutches of greatness.) I believe Willie’s bandwidth says it all.

In our day-to-day social and professional conversations we tend to overuse, trivialise and devalue the word ‘great’ to the point of parody. It seems everything, or almost everything, has an in-built potential for greatness. An ice-cream can be great, a square-cut can be great, a barber can be great, a hotel can be great, a magician can be great. So, as we commence our detailed examination of what constitutes greatness, we need to move from the ridiculous to the sublime.

But first, a warning. Great individuals, who acquire the rare virtue by one of the three routes suggested by Shakespeare, must be rigorously evaluated, subjecting them to an appraisal which is at once exhaustive and unsparing.

The devil, as we all know, lies in the detail. Someone classified as a great human being, naturally, needs to be inspirational, a role model, someone who through his or her genius communicates pleasure, pride and enjoyment to millions. The phrase ‘national treasure’ should sit easily on the person.

Take someone like Lata Mangeshkar or Sachin Tendulkar or M.S. Subbulakshmi. On the pleasure scale, all three qualify comfortably. On the inspirational scale and the role model scale too they qualify comfortably. But Sachin and Lata (Satyajit Ray, Ravi Shankar, M.F. Husain and Amitabh Bachchan are others), who otherwise seem to have all the right qualifications to walk into the pantheon of the great, lack one essential characteristic. To be indubitably great, the individual needs to go beyond the aforementioned three scales. He or she must in some measure have contributed to improving the life of the common man.

If you are hungry, destitute, watching Sachin hit a century may only provide short-term but no long-term relief.

In India, especially, making lives materially (as opposed to emotionally or spiritually) better is crucial because vast numbers of our fellow citizens live in degrading poverty. If you are sick or hungry or destitute, watching Sachin Tendulkar score a scintillating century or hearing Lata Mangeshkar sing a lilting melody may provide short-term but not long-term relief. It will not fill an empty stomach. Compassion, too, is not enough. Mother Teresa won a Nobel prize for making available institutionalised compassion to those abandoned and forsaken on the filthy streets of Calcutta. She made sure they got a dignified death. Alas, she couldn’t prevent them from dying, she could not lift them from hopelessness and despair. Mother Teresa, for all her goodness, couldn’t transform lives, she could only offer a few days or hours of solace. She did good work but not great work.

The acid test for greatness, in India, must inevitably entail some degree of enabling of economic and social enhancement—or at least point the way to how it can be obtained. Think of Ela Bhatt, who seems to be a particular favourite of Hillary Clinton.

Consequently, all the men and women who led India’s struggle against colonialism automatically qualify for the coveted label. They didn’t just liberate a large nation from the colonial yoke, but through that liberation allowed the citizen an opportunity to explore and aspire for an improved quality of life. (Of course, if you believe that life under the British was superior and preferable to the one we are living now, no argument is possible.) Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar, Azad, without putting them into any sort of hierarchy, walk into the pantheon under discussion without any difficulty.

Ravi Shankar, Ray fall at the last hurdle because the critical component, of betterment, is missing in their bio-data.

Some of the other names which come into the reckoning while compiling such a list—Ravi Shankar, Satyajit Ray etc—unfortunately fall at the last hurdle because the critical component of betterment is missing, or present in a minimal degree in their bio-data. J.R.D. Tata, in my view, is a borderline case since he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Undoubtedly, he enhanced the business empire he inherited but he did not create it. Similarly, Ratan Tata took forward what had already been started. Dhirubhai Ambani, who began life as a petrol pump attendant, and Narayana Murthy, who heralded India’s software revolution, achieved greatness through the old-fashioned path of blood, sweat and tears. They have better claims to greatness.

In times of grave national challenge, a country can throw up great leaders (like Winston Churchill in Britain during World War II). The relevant leaders may demonstrate exceptional courage, strategic brilliance and organisational skill in combating and overcoming the specific challenge. However, once the moment has passed, the challenge negotiated, he or she fades away. Churchill was emphatically rejected by the British after Germany surrendered in 1946. Jayaprakash Narayan, during the Emergency in 1975 and just after, managed to unite an impossibly fractious opposition to defeat Indira Gandhi in 1977, but achieved little else.

Do countries like India really need great men and women to mentor them? This is a debatable issue, and some may feel they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The German playwright Bertolt Brecht noted: “Pity the nation that needs heroes.” E.M. Forster of Passage to India fame, in his essay Two Cheers for Democracy, says, “I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man’s pleasure when they come a cropper.” The American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald declared, “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.”

One can argue, nevertheless, that in a young and emerging democracy impoverished by raiders, conquerors and foreign dynasties for centuries, and in present times governed by the corrupt and the incompetent, there is some requirement for a few great men and women. However, the sooner the requirement is dispensed with, the better it will be for that country.

Perhaps a few great men are needed, but not too many. A caveat: the need to distinguish between bogus and genuine.

A couple of weeks ago, on a hot Sunday afternoon, I spent time with the flawed but well-meaning Anna Hazare. I couldn’t help notice in a crowd of around 8,000 the conspicuous absence of your usual metropolitan cynicism. Family after family waving the national flag lustily and wearing ‘I am Anna’ topis came to see and pay awed obeisance to the great man who promised to rid India of corruption. For me it was an instructive afternoon.

Perhaps, a few great men are needed, but not too many. With one caveat: we must be able to distinguish between the bogus and the genuine. Credulity, of which there is no shortage in our society, poses a major problem. Periodically, we are duped into accepting that so-and-so is great, a messiah, saviour only to be disillusioned sooner rather than later. If you ask me, I would have some difficulty in identifying any political figure after Jawaharlal Nehru who can be bestowed the crown of greatness.

Just consider. Which are the most settled, harmonious, gender-fair, affluent and egalitarian countries on our planet? Immediately, the Scandinavian quartet of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland come to mind. Belgium, Holland, Canada, Switzerland do not lag far behind. Now think how many Great Men and Women they have thrown up? Olof Palme and Dag Hammarskjold from Sweden are the only ones I can recall. (Sample this rather cruel joke: how many famous Belgians can you think of? The fictional character, Hercule Poirot, created by an Englishwoman, Agatha Christie, topped the list in a BBC poll.) The poor Swiss have been lampooned for decades, by among others, Orson Welles, for being capable of producing only cuckoo-clocks and chocolates. However, an independent-minded person will be forced to concede that these nations have not done too badly without the benefit of great men to guide them.

Any hope for you and me? Do we have an iota of chance for aspiring to greatness? Or doing great things? I am referring to the man on the Chandni Chowk bus. Is he perpetually reduced to being an also-ran? Can he only watch, mostly in disgust, as his so-called great men screw up his country? Is the aam aadmi reduced to being just an impotent spectator?

The situation is not wholly hopeless. The common man can also be a competitor in the greatness race. But we have to set different norms which are as, if not more, important than those we set to evaluate conventional greatness. Since it is a given that the man on the Chandni Chowk bus does not possess the tools to do great things (like being elected prime minister), he can aim for mini-greatness, which collectively could make more of a difference than the momentous deeds of great men. Here is my inventory for mini-greatness: pay your taxes, obey the laws of the land, do not covet your neighbour’s wife, be an upstanding member of the community, shun caste, regional, religious and ethnic biases. Of course, this is a less neon-lit kind of greatness or mini-greatness. But it counts.

In this quest you will have to draw a lakshmanrekha. Your conscience will tell you where that line is.

If you wish your letter to be considered for publication in the print magazine, we request you to use a proper name, with full postal address - you could still maintain your anonymity, but please desist from using unpublishable sobriquets and handles

Apropos your issue on The Greatest Indian After Gandhi (Aug 20), the greatest Indian after Gandhi is neither Nehru nor Ambedkar, Kalam or Tata. My vote goes to the common man (or woman), the aam aadmi, the long-suffering Indian. Sixty-five years after Independence, s/he remains the lone bulwark of our country. Kicked around, swindled, made false promises to every five years, waiting in endless queues for getting sanction for the basic amenities of life, fighting for admission to school or college, deprived of healthcare, hostage to terrorists and cultural police alike.

Col Romy Sakharia, Kochi

If you set Gandhi as a benchmark, then it becomes imperative that the contenders for the greatest Indian after him be judged by the standards of the Mahatma. And your 10 finalists fall far short of Gandhi’s greatness. The popular vote and market research may put A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on top but unfortunately popularity is mistaken for greatness. Agreed, Kalam was one of the most popular of Indian presidents due to his proactive approach and his ability to connect with the youth, but he certainly doesn’t deserve to be on a par with Ambedkar or higher in ranking than luminaries like Nehru, Patel or J.R.D. Tata, who remain the foremost jewels in the crown of India.

S.R. Gadicherla, Bangalore

How come veteran freedom-fighter Abul Kalam Azad does not figure in your list, but Abdul Kalam, the rocket engineer who slipped into the presidency due to the political expediency of the then ruling combine, is towards the top?

K.P. Luke Vydhian, Bangalore

It’s ridiculous to compare the greatness of a Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar or even J.R.D. Tata with Gandhi. These individuals are great in their respective spheres, but don’t even come close to Gandhi.

G.S. Rao, Bangalore

The collection of articles on Ambedkar was outstanding. However, Buddhist Ambedkarites, instead of subscribing to the Lotus Sutra ideal of being like a Bodhisattva, ‘never disparaging’, are ‘always disparaging’, whether of Gandhi or Brahmins, or whatever. Only the articles by Sudheendra Kulkarni (The Theology of Intolerance) and Saba Naqvi (The Higher Statesman?) were balanced, as was Gail Omvedt (A Part That Parted).

Santhanam Krishnan, on e-mail

Can anyone enlighten us how many times Ambedkar went to jail during the freedom struggle? Was he not defeated in his own reserved constituency during the general election, indicating he didn't even have the support of his own people?

Rama Rao Kathirisetti, Hyderabad

Why this fuss over a No. 2 to Gandhi? Is it not narrow typecasting? A nation is not a bunch of people. The collective wisdom of a billion Indians should catapult us to new horizons of progress.

Jitendra Sangawar, Hyderabad

Unlike what Vinod Mehta says about Mother Teresa in the lead essay (On Greatness), I think I would be “lifted out of hopelessness and despair” if someone picked me up when I was “lying forsaken and abandoned....” Not that I think she should be the ‘Greatest Indian’, but your arguments against it were a bit skewed.

Ierene Francis, Bangalore

While deciding greatness, one parameter had to be paramount—the section which says ‘against all odds’. Dr Ambedkar took on a 5,000-year-old ingrained, inhuman system called casteism and helped best it.

Ranadheer Patwardhan, Sangli

I agree with your list of requirements for mini-greatness, bar one point: do not covet your neighbour’s wife. Thodi toh badmashi karne dijiye.

Mohan, Adipur

On setting the criteria for the ordinary citizen’s ‘greatness’, I’d like to add two points—political awareness and utilising the right to vote. An Indian greatness menu would be incomplete otherwise.

Shereen, Abu Dhabi

Today India is what Indira Gandhi made of it. It’s a shame that neither she nor her son Rajiv are part of the list.

Rahul Pathak, Patna

When the rich and the netas break every law that you proscribe for the ‘ordinary citizen’ and get away with it too, why should I not do the same? What will I get for clearing my own conscience? What will I get for suppressing the evil inside me? Absolutely nothing. PS: Good article, but the German surrender was after Hitler’s death and the UK elections happened in 1945, not in 1946.

Rishi Vyas, Kangra

In India, where people are so ill-informed and biased, this kind of poll is meaningless. And in today’s anti-Congress mood, Nehru wouldn’t have got many votes. The truth is, this wasn’t a poll, this was an election. Nehru lost.

Rohit Desai, Mt Prospect, US

In a country where very few follow the laws of the land, it is very easy to achieve greatness. For, any person who helps restore some order can lay claim to it, Anna Hazare in Maharashtra and ex-supercop H.T. Sangliana in Karnataka being prime examples.

Amar Heblekar, Panaji

As they say, ‘some achieve greatness in spite of the media, and some have greatness thrust upon them by the media’.

K. Suresh, Bangalore

Congrats, Mr Mehta, your batteries seem to have been recharged after you retired from helmsmanship.

Apropos Vinod Mehta’s essay in the issue on the Greatest Indian After Gandhi (On Greatness, Aug 20), timely retirement is also an important aspect in deciding the degree of greatness. Don Bradman’s timely retirement certainly enhanced his greatness. As against that, his Indian avatar is still hanging on.

Dipal Paresh, Ahmedabad

We should try to rescue Ambedkar from becoming an icon just of Dalit politics. Great men do not belong to a particular caste or community, they belong to mankind.

Dharmesh Kumar, Jaipur

Since your search for the ‘Greatest’ was for one after the Mahatma, it was a foregone conclusion it had to be Ambedkar. But I wonder why no one’s given thought to Sri Narayana Guru, who spoke for “One Caste, One Religion, One God” for mankind?

I totally agree with the view of Col Romy Sakharia, Kochi (Letters, Outlook, 3 September 2012), that the greatest Indian is the comman man who is suffering since last 65 years. As I think greatness is the outcome of one's deeds of sacrificing for country or society and not for himself or his own cast, creed or gender. There are many great Indians in present perspective who are doing their job for their organisation, society and country in their own way. And they do this with sacrifice, dedication, honesty and principles. It is a need to search them and bring them in front of countrymen. This could be done by media only.

It is very unfortunate that we are still cast and religion biased. The result of the survey and letter of Mr Shuddhodhan Aher, Mumbai merely a reflection of this.

The Greatest Indian after Mahatma
Anatomy of a superlative suffix—‘The Quest for the White Lie’
“At bottom, the intellectual, in my sense of the word, is neither a pacifier nor a consensus-builder, but someone whose whole being is staked on a critical sense, a sense of being unwilling to accept easy formulas of ready-made clichés, or the smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of what the powerful or conventional have to say and what they do. Not just passively unwillingly, but actively willing to say so in public.”— Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual

Although, the Outlook magazine has come out with its critique of the “The Greatest Indian” poll launched by HISTORY TV18 and CNN IBN, the critique seems to be populistic. Whether it is Ambedkar or Gandhi or any other personality, the questions that have been raised in this article are haunting realities of such a poll.
The so-called “The Greatest Indian” poll is interesting in many ways. Firstly, the superlative— “greatest”— has been defined in the utilitarian sense. An Indian who has affected the lives of “maximum” number of Indians for “better” in the post-Independent India is considered to be “the Greatest Indian”. This would mean precisely that the difference between first and second ranked candidates must be at least one changed-for-better person—a fact, which some of the candidates would never knew about and would never know.
Secondly, the word ‘better’ in the definition is left unspecified for subjective interpretation. The phrase “changed for better” has various manifestations— social, psychological, moral, economic, intellectual etc. A person can affect another person through such manifestations. Motivation, to some extent, plays its part in it. It is indirect, in the sense of leading to a desired change. For instance, the works of a sportsman or of a musician can function as a source of motivation to the people experiencing it. Some may use it as an instrument to develop as another such sportsman or such musician. Some others may use it as an instrument for relaxation. Some others would simply consume it since others are doing so, without any instrumental rationality. Getting motivated is the property of the receiver, though the performer sometimes would think otherwise. Motivation aspect aside, a person can directly change another person’s well-being, positively. A social worker or social reformer does it under the role of problem-solver. A politician does it as well under the same role by using the constitutional/legal powers of his/her position—for instance, MPLAD scheme in India. An ordinary person does it as well in his own capacity. A quite distinct problem-solver is a ‘technology-man’—who is obsessed with devising new ways of doing things. Discovering/inventing a life-saving drug is indeed a problem-solving that changes the lives of many for better. Similarly, inventing a new technology that boosts up agricultural productivity and production can ensure food security, which by no means an ordinary contribution irrespective of the ‘justness’ in distribution. What matters is to recognise these in the change that represents the improvement in the well-being of the affected person. However, there is no way of finding it out in this poll set-up.
An individual’s conceptualisation of “better” simply translates into a vote. All the votes for an individual would then be identical despite being based on different evaluative contents. Subjectivity turned objectivity on its head. End becomes more important than means—a significant property of voting. Here, it is necessary to tackle the crucial categories of change—actual and potential. A change is ‘actual change’ when it improves the person’s well-being whereas a change is ‘potential change’ when it has the capacity to improve the well-being, if realised. Most plausible examples of the latter are business and research proposals waiting for clearances from any authority. These categories of change emphasize the role played by opportunities in identifying greatness in a person. It also reminds of the ‘unsung heroes’ or ‘limeliteless people’. Sensitization is the key to recognizing greatness, here. For instance, people in the nation’s defence forces work continuously to safeguard the nation from external threat. Imagine a situation in their absence. The entire nation would be under subjugation to a foreign force—a tremendous negative shift in the well-being of the people of the nation. Are these people not contributing to well-being by having changed the lives of all for better?
Thirdly, the definition is pseudo-patriotic in essence—as it is narrowly constructed. Is an Indian who has contributed to the world not a candidate for greatness in this poll? Are such Indians an excluded category of Indians reserved for being selected as the ‘Greatest Global Indian’ as a sequel to ‘Greatest Domestic Indian’?! Possibilities are there that people who would make their Nation proud in the international domain may not have a huge ‘fan base’ within their Nation. Should this matter? There is a serious dialectical problem in the definition—Nation or its people. It is not that the problem should be absent in the presence of choosing one of the two objects of greatness. The problem prevails until the choosing between the two is absent. There is no way that either can be ignored for the sake of each other. A citizen, whether locally contributing or globally contributing cannot escape the reality of being citizen. Such negligence can evoke a sense of alienation in the ignored category of citizens, whatever is the degree of alienation. Then, why such crucial element in ‘citizennness’ is being ignored?
Fourthly, the list of candidates is already determined by the “Nominators” (‘Primary elite’)—the ‘eligibles’, who use their judgements to decide whom to nominate. The “jury” (‘Secondary elite’) and the voters (‘Tertiary elite’ and/or Mass) have to choose among the given. It is no less a sectarian scheme. History is filled with these. It is as well not different from election process, which also is structured in the same way as far as choosing among the given is concerned. The masses are severely constrained in such voting systems while exercising their choice. The constraints are not only set by the given number of candidates to choose from, but also by the one-dimensional vote. For instance, no such scale as “Likert scale” or as “Semantic Differential scale” is being used to measure a vote, horizontally. All that is done is either to vote exclusively a candidate or to rank the candidates—cases of vertical measure of vote. It is possible that voters may have indifferent opinion about the candidates. It is also possible that voters may not have absolute opinion about each candidate. So, there is always a degree in choosing in such cases. These are to be represented adequately by the vote. The current voting system, in this sense, is incomplete. How far can we call it democratic, if we adhere to ‘democratic’ ideals and practice? A ‘true, practicable democracy’—the one that is as close as possible to the “Ideal type”—simply eliminates such constraints. For instance, people should be given freedom to nominate whom they want to vote! There is neither contradiction nor indeterminacy in it. One way of implementing it by the following rule: keep picking the ‘favourites’ with increasing amalgamation of subgroups of population. Of course, the only subgroup that works is the one defined on geographical basis and not on geographical root. Other ways of implementing it may always be thought of. The point is simple. There is no need to emulate. Transcend. Intellectuals must always be at work in redefining the standards of society towards ‘universal well-being’—that is, the well-being of all. Self-oriented intellectuals are of no relevance to the society in which they live. Same applies to the case of choosing the greatest citizen. If it is some sort of game show meant to entertain people or to increase the viewership then it is a social mockery. If it is not, then it would be a mockery of the contributions of persons concerned.
Fifthly, the problem is one of missing representation. Remarkably, those who have access to telephone and internet and among these who are aware and who are members of the Facebook and among these who participate in voting constitute the real population for this poll. As of December 2011, tele-density in India is 76.8 percent, whereas it is only 37.5 percent in the rural India and the total number of internet subscribers in India is 19.6 million. Not all of them can be expected to participate, for obvious reasons of awareness and willingness. However, even if we take it for granted that all of them have participated, there is, still, a large section of the country’s population being left out. This is the ‘missing population’, whose presence or absence can significantly affect the results. More importantly, its absence would undoubtedly nullify the value of the quest. There is another category of population that is in some way related to the candidates in question. It includes critics and followers of different age and sex. It represents the net direct contribution of the candidate. Any changes in the composition of critics and followers within it over a period of time would alter the value of the net contribution. Hence, there is an impossibility of truly knowing the existence of the greatest person.
Sixthly, treating the population of the country as homogenous is incorrect. Population will never be homogeneous in its entirety. There is heterogeneity on the basis of occupation, sex, class, caste, religion, beliefs, health, wealth, education, skills, humanity, harmony, honesty, ethics, etc. One need not have to place the members of the population in the groups based on such criteria; they simply fall into the respective groups on their own, sometimes defining new and overlapping criteria. Given such a heterogeneous population, how does one measure a person’s contribution? It should be quite obvious that a beneficiary who practices social harmony is better than a beneficiary who practices social disharmony. What is the mechanism to recognise such subtle differences? What if the person’s contribution is solely towards the people who practices social disharmony or who are unethical or dishonest? The criteria such as “Leadership”, “Genius”, and “Compassion” are ineffective in solving these fundamental problems of recognition.
There appears to be a post-modernist trap—impossibility of arriving at a general agreement. Objectivity is a dead tree. If this is the case, where/how do the quest for the greatest person stand? The quest is null and void. There cannot be a general agreement on what constitutes the greatest person. The utilitarian measurement of greatness, a whole number, cannot be given a unique meaning. Since, there is no way to find out the hidden intentions of voters behind their votes. The number may simultaneously represent the meaning ‘voters like the candidate’ as well as the meaning ‘voters do not like the candidate’. The latter is a possibility since some people do not want their favourites to compete with their non-favourites. It is not an unusual phenomenon. For instance, in sports some fans, who held their favourites at high esteem, would only want to experience their favourites competing against each other in that sport. A challenge by the weak (non-favourite) would never attract their attention. It is as good as voting for the weak since there would be no pressure from these fans. Also, when any individual (voter) is asked to list out great persons in order of his/her preference or ranking, there is a possibility that the list would end up as unique to that individual. There is also a possibility that none of the top-preferred ones would coincide with the candidates chosen for the poll in the quest. Moreover, if the first-ranked great person in each individual’s preference list does not coincide, but the second-ranked great person coincides, then all would vote for their second-ranked great person in the poll. This candidate is not their first preference and the poll would show otherwise. Hence, the number may never show its true content, which would mean that it is impossible for us to interpret the maximum number as determining the winner.
Seventhly, there are so many development programmes in the country meant for improving the conditions of the poor. Where do these fit in? Poor had an important place in the democracy of the ancient Greece. They constituted the demos. Should not the individuals, who have rolled in the development programmes, irrespective of whether they designed it or not, for them, be considered as great? There is a likelihood for such individuals to gain a great number of votes, if the poor participates in the poll. Given that the poor participates, should the programme-rollers be considered as suitable candidates? Obviously, since they change the lives of the poor for better. As mentioned earlier, the opportunities an individual get determines the reach that individual will have in changing the lives of the people for better. Thus, greatness of an individual is a function of the opportunities. Treated in this sense, the quest for the greatest person is indeed a quest for knowing who had the greatest opportunity. But, the way the poll is designed need not ensure this one-to-one relation. Large number of poor may never participate in the poll for the reasons mentioned—a case of inadequate opportunities.
Such superlative syndrome of obsessing on the greatest things is not new to mass media. The quest to find the greatest citizen undoubtedly demands extreme carefulness in problematizing and recognizing greatness in a heterogeneous society, which is indeed a stupendous and near-impossible endeavour, for it smacks of clear representation. When something of this sort of superficial quest is unleashed on the target viewers, as an intellectual endeavour, can we expect anything more? There can be no conclusion in such a quest as it is an ongoing process in which contribution itself is appropriated over a period of time. This is also against public intellectualism for our set-up, on which mass media is expected to exercise its careful discretion. At the end of the day, the quest is at best, intellectual travesty flaunting itself for seemingly exotic analysis.

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬Author Information
M. Bharath Raj Urs and Mr. Krishnamurty Sitaram are research scholars based in Bengaluru.

The Greatest Indian after Mahatma
Anatomy of a superlative suffix—‘The Quest for the White Lie’

“At bottom, the intellectual, in my sense of the word, is neither a pacifier nor a consensus-builder, but someone whose whole being is staked on a critical sense, a sense of being unwilling to accept easy formulas of ready-made clichés, or the smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of what the powerful or conventional have to say and what they do. Not just passively unwillingly, but actively willing to say so in public.”— Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual

Although, the Outlook magazine has come out with its critique of the “The Greatest Indian” poll launched by HISTORY TV18 and CNN IBN, the critique seems to be populistic. Whether it is Ambedkar or Gandhi or any other personality, the questions that have been raised in this article are haunting realities of such a poll.
The so-called “The Greatest Indian” poll is interesting in many ways. Firstly, the superlative— “greatest”— has been defined in the utilitarian sense. An Indian who has affected the lives of “maximum” number of Indians for “better” in the post-Independent India is considered to be “the Greatest Indian”. This would mean precisely that the difference between first and second ranked candidates must be at least one changed-for-better person—a fact, which some of the candidates would never knew about and would never know.
Secondly, the word ‘better’ in the definition is left unspecified for subjective interpretation. The phrase “changed for better” has various manifestations— social, psychological, moral, economic, intellectual etc. A person can affect another person through such manifestations. Motivation, to some extent, plays its part in it. It is indirect, in the sense of leading to a desired change. For instance, the works of a sportsman or of a musician can function as a source of motivation to the people experiencing it. Some may use it as an instrument to develop as another such sportsman or such musician. Some others may use it as an instrument for relaxation. Some others would simply consume it since others are doing so, without any instrumental rationality. Getting motivated is the property of the receiver, though the performer sometimes would think otherwise. Motivation aspect aside, a person can directly change another person’s well-being, positively. A social worker or social reformer does it under the role of problem-solver. A politician does it as well under the same role by using the constitutional/legal powers of his/her position—for instance, MPLAD scheme in India. An ordinary person does it as well in his own capacity. A quite distinct problem-solver is a ‘technology-man’—who is obsessed with devising new ways of doing things. Discovering/inventing a life-saving drug is indeed a problem-solving that changes the lives of many for better. Similarly, inventing a new technology that boosts up agricultural productivity and production can ensure food security, which by no means an ordinary contribution irrespective of the ‘justness’ in distribution. What matters is to recognise these in the change that represents the improvement in the well-being of the affected person. However, there is no way of finding it out in this poll set-up.
An individual’s conceptualisation of “better” simply translates into a vote. All the votes for an individual would then be identical despite being based on different evaluative contents. Subjectivity turned objectivity on its head. End becomes more important than means—a significant property of voting. Here, it is necessary to tackle the crucial categories of change—actual and potential. A change is ‘actual change’ when it improves the person’s well-being whereas a change is ‘potential change’ when it has the capacity to improve the well-being, if realised. Most plausible examples of the latter are business and research proposals waiting for clearances from any authority. These categories of change emphasize the role played by opportunities in identifying greatness in a person. It also reminds of the ‘unsung heroes’ or ‘limeliteless people’. Sensitization is the key to recognizing greatness, here. For instance, people in the nation’s defence forces work continuously to safeguard the nation from external threat. Imagine a situation in their absence. The entire nation would be under subjugation to a foreign force—a tremendous negative shift in the well-being of the people of the nation. Are these people not contributing to well-being by having changed the lives of all for better?
Thirdly, the definition is pseudo-patriotic in essence—as it is narrowly constructed. Is an Indian who has contributed to the world not a candidate for greatness in this poll? Are such Indians an excluded category of Indians reserved for being selected as the ‘Greatest Global Indian’ as a sequel to ‘Greatest Domestic Indian’?! Possibilities are there that people who would make their Nation proud in the international domain may not have a huge ‘fan base’ within their Nation. Should this matter? There is a serious dialectical problem in the definition—Nation or its people. It is not that the problem should be absent in the presence of choosing one of the two objects of greatness. The problem prevails until the choosing between the two is absent. There is no way that either can be ignored for the sake of each other. A citizen, whether locally contributing or globally contributing cannot escape the reality of being citizen. Such negligence can evoke a sense of alienation in the ignored category of citizens, whatever is the degree of alienation. Then, why such crucial element in ‘citizennness’ is being ignored?
Fourthly, the list of candidates is already determined by the “Nominators” (‘Primary elite’)—the ‘eligibles’, who use their judgements to decide whom to nominate. The “jury” (‘Secondary elite’) and the voters (‘Tertiary elite’ and/or Mass) have to choose among the given. It is no less a sectarian scheme. History is filled with these. It is as well not different from election process, which also is structured in the same way as far as choosing among the given is concerned. The masses are severely constrained in such voting systems while exercising their choice. The constraints are not only set by the given number of candidates to choose from, but also by the one-dimensional vote. For instance, no such scale as “Likert scale” or as “Semantic Differential scale” is being used to measure a vote, horizontally. All that is done is either to vote exclusively a candidate or to rank the candidates—cases of vertical measure of vote. It is possible that voters may have indifferent opinion about the candidates. It is also possible that voters may not have absolute opinion about each candidate. So, there is always a degree in choosing in such cases. These are to be represented adequately by the vote. The current voting system, in this sense, is incomplete. How far can we call it democratic, if we adhere to ‘democratic’ ideals and practice? A ‘true, practicable democracy’—the one that is as close as possible to the “Ideal type”—simply eliminates such constraints. For instance, people should be given freedom to nominate whom they want to vote! There is neither contradiction nor indeterminacy in it. One way of implementing it by the following rule: keep picking the ‘favourites’ with increasing amalgamation of subgroups of population. Of course, the only subgroup that works is the one defined on geographical basis and not on geographical root. Other ways of implementing it may always be thought of. The point is simple. There is no need to emulate. Transcend. Intellectuals must always be at work in redefining the standards of society towards ‘universal well-being’—that is, the well-being of all. Self-oriented intellectuals are of no relevance to the society in which they live. Same applies to the case of choosing the greatest citizen. If it is some sort of game show meant to entertain people or to increase the viewership then it is a social mockery. If it is not, then it would be a mockery of the contributions of persons concerned.
Fifthly, the problem is one of missing representation. Remarkably, those who have access to telephone and internet and among these who are aware and who are members of the Facebook and among these who participate in voting constitute the real population for this poll. As of December 2011, tele-density in India is 76.8 percent, whereas it is only 37.5 percent in the rural India and the total number of internet subscribers in India is 19.6 million. Not all of them can be expected to participate, for obvious reasons of awareness and willingness. However, even if we take it for granted that all of them have participated, there is, still, a large section of the country’s population being left out. This is the ‘missing population’, whose presence or absence can significantly affect the results. More importantly, its absence would undoubtedly nullify the value of the quest. There is another category of population that is in some way related to the candidates in question. It includes critics and followers of different age and sex. It represents the net direct contribution of the candidate. Any changes in the composition of critics and followers within it over a period of time would alter the value of the net contribution. Hence, there is an impossibility of truly knowing the existence of the greatest person.
Sixthly, treating the population of the country as homogenous is incorrect. Population will never be homogeneous in its entirety. There is heterogeneity on the basis of occupation, sex, class, caste, religion, beliefs, health, wealth, education, skills, humanity, harmony, honesty, ethics, etc. One need not have to place the members of the population in the groups based on such criteria; they simply fall into the respective groups on their own, sometimes defining new and overlapping criteria. Given such a heterogeneous population, how does one measure a person’s contribution? It should be quite obvious that a beneficiary who practices social harmony is better than a beneficiary who practices social disharmony. What is the mechanism to recognise such subtle differences? What if the person’s contribution is solely towards the people who practices social disharmony or who are unethical or dishonest? The criteria such as “Leadership”, “Genius”, and “Compassion” are ineffective in solving these fundamental problems of recognition.
There appears to be a post-modernist trap—impossibility of arriving at a general agreement. Objectivity is a dead tree. If this is the case, where/how do the quest for the greatest person stand? The quest is null and void. There cannot be a general agreement on what constitutes the greatest person. The utilitarian measurement of greatness, a whole number, cannot be given a unique meaning. Since, there is no way to find out the hidden intentions of voters behind their votes. The number may simultaneously represent the meaning ‘voters like the candidate’ as well as the meaning ‘voters do not like the candidate’. The latter is a possibility since some people do not want their favourites to compete with their non-favourites. It is not an unusual phenomenon. For instance, in sports some fans, who held their favourites at high esteem, would only want to experience their favourites competing against each other in that sport. A challenge by the weak (non-favourite) would never attract their attention. It is as good as voting for the weak since there would be no pressure from these fans. Also, when any individual (voter) is asked to list out great persons in order of his/her preference or ranking, there is a possibility that the list would end up as unique to that individual. There is also a possibility that none of the top-preferred ones would coincide with the candidates chosen for the poll in the quest. Moreover, if the first-ranked great person in each individual’s preference list does not coincide, but the second-ranked great person coincides, then all would vote for their second-ranked great person in the poll. This candidate is not their first preference and the poll would show otherwise. Hence, the number may never show its true content, which would mean that it is impossible for us to interpret the maximum number as determining the winner.
Seventhly, there are so many development programmes in the country meant for improving the conditions of the poor. Where do these fit in? Poor had an important place in the democracy of the ancient Greece. They constituted the demos. Should not the individuals, who have rolled in the development programmes, irrespective of whether they designed it or not, for them, be considered as great? There is a likelihood for such individuals to gain a great number of votes, if the poor participates in the poll. Given that the poor participates, should the programme-rollers be considered as suitable candidates? Obviously, since they change the lives of the poor for better. As mentioned earlier, the opportunities an individual get determines the reach that individual will have in changing the lives of the people for better. Thus, greatness of an individual is a function of the opportunities. Treated in this sense, the quest for the greatest person is indeed a quest for knowing who had the greatest opportunity. But, the way the poll is designed need not ensure this one-to-one relation. Large number of poor may never participate in the poll for the reasons mentioned—a case of inadequate opportunities.
Such superlative syndrome of obsessing on the greatest things is not new to mass media. The quest to find the greatest citizen undoubtedly demands extreme carefulness in problematizing and recognizing greatness in a heterogeneous society, which is indeed a stupendous and near-impossible endeavour, for it smacks of clear representation. When something of this sort of superficial quest is unleashed on the target viewers, as an intellectual endeavour, can we expect anything more? There can be no conclusion in such a quest as it is an ongoing process in which contribution itself is appropriated over a period of time. This is also against public intellectualism for our set-up, on which mass media is expected to exercise its careful discretion. At the end of the day, the quest is at best, intellectual travesty flaunting itself for seemingly exotic analysis.

¬Author Information
M. Bharath Raj Urs and Mr. Krishnamurty Sitaram are research scholars based in Bengaluru.

Ambedkar the Awakened One With Awareness had stature as a social actor and the value of his scholarship since he knew the Exposition of Dukkhasacca-??????????????? ??????????????????

And what, bhikkhus, is jati (birth)? For the various beings in the various classes of beings, jati, the birth, the descent [into the womb], the arising [in the world], the appearance, the apparition of the khandhas (a mass, a heap, a collection of, 'all that constitutes/ is comprised under...' (ex: dukkha-khandha: all that constitutes dukkha). ), the acquisition of the ayatanas (sphere, stretch, extent, reach, sphere of perception). This, bhikkhus, is called jati.

And what, bhikkhus, is the dukkha ariyasacca? Jati is dukkha, aging is dukkha (sickness is dukkha) mara?a is dukkha, sorrow, lamentation, dukkha, domanassa and distress is dukkha, association with what is disliked is dukkha, dissociation from what is liked is dukkha, not to get what one wants is dukkha; in short, the five upadana·k·khandhas are dukkha.

You are all requested to concentrate on such teachings along with your other activities. There are 84,000 types of births and 84,000 solutions in the TIPITAKA. You may write these teachings in different languages. Such an activity will bring peace, welfare and happiness to all living beings.

I'm surpised to see the name of Gautama Buddha missing from the list. Perhaps he doesn't qualify because he was born in Lumbini?
Arun Kumar
Lucknow, India

WHILE DECIDING GREATNESS-one of parameter which also needs to be considered is ' enemies ability ' that great person encountered with, Dr Amedkar fought with 5000 year old inhuman, unjustified but deep rooted and enforced system called casteism , which was more powerful than hitler, indira or crickets all fast baller together or non coperative and corrupt system with which JRD , anna or naryan murthy fought while trying to introduce values in society and business or suman kalynpur and vinod khanna or rajesh khanna with whom lata and amit compared and assessed.
ranadheer patwardhan
sangli, India

-ve people with traditional venomous Dominating hatred and angry ones who believe in First, Second, Third, Fourth rate souls and that the untouchables have no soul and they could do any harm they wished to do to them and to prevent them from acquiring the MASTER KEY as desired by Dr.Ambedkar for the creation of PraBuddha Bharath through the policy of SARVAJAN HITHAY SARVAJAN SUKHAY by the Bahujan Samaj Party.

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